Tech image

Music's Role in the Evolution of Programmable Computing

By geoffdue
  • 43,000 BCE

    Mammoth Bone Flute

    Mammoth Bone Flute
    This is the earliest music instrument found. This flute is made from mammoth ivory. The flute was found by Professor Tom Higham at Geissenkloesterle Cave in Germany’s Swabian Jura.
  • 260 BCE

    Lever

    Lever
    The prolific Greek mathematician, Archimedes described the lever. Levers are a fundamental tool that was used by prehistoric humans.
  • 250 BCE

    Hydraulis

    Hydraulis
    The Greek engineer, Ktesibios, discovered how one person could play a large set of pipes without needing to blow air through them one at a time. Greeks and Romans loved the hydraulis and it had a tremendous impact in the musical world for centuries. One thousand years passed before the hydraulic was replaced by more powerful and mechanically complex instruments.
  • 840

    First Music Box

    First Music Box
    This early mechanical musical instrument invented by the Banū Musā brothers in Baghdad, Iraq. This music box was a hydropower organ that played interchangeable encoded cylinders automatically.

  • Flute Player Automaton

    Flute Player Automaton
    Jacques de Vaucanson’s The Flute Player is the first automaton and the first to perform a series of mechanical actions that were sufficiently complex to portray a credible imitation of life. This invention contained an encoded cylinder that played the music and guided the figure’s movements.
    In 1745, Vaucanson designed a loom with an encoded cylinder. However, instead of each encoded pin paired with a music note, he paired it to a particular colored thread of fabric.

  • First Programmable Loom

    First Programmable Loom
    Improving on Vaucanson’s encoded cylinder loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard used punched cards that controlled the loom. The use of punched cards allowed the automatic production of an infinite variety of woven patterns.

  • The Writing Harpsichord

    The Writing Harpsichord
    The Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri created the writing machine for his blind friend, Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano.
    Years later, the Sholes & Gidden Type Writer (1873) was very influential and popular. It used the QWERTY keyboard arrangement used today. This design separated frequently used letter combinations as a method of avoiding type bar jams.

  • The Analytical Engine (First computing machine)

    The Analytical Engine (First computing machine)
    Computer pioneer, Charles Babbage’s (1791-1871) analytical engine marks the leap from the mechanized arithmetic of calculating to fully-realized general-purpose computation. Programmable punched cards borrowed from Jacquard’s loom performed the arithmetic processing. Punched cards were so effective that they remained in use until the 1970s.